Guild Wars 2

Devs,

Now that two of the best Mesmer players, Helseth and Sensotix, have quit playing Mesmer in favor of thief, are you going to recognize the “Apex Predator” problem you have created?

For clarification I am not saying Helseth and Sensotix are the best, simply among the best.

edit:
Helseth quitting Mesmer: http://www.twitch.tv/helsethgw2/b/500201131
Sensotix quitting Mesmer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3e9eHHjfaQ

edit: Uncertain of the status, but apparently supcutie is not playing Mesmer in tournaments as well.

Thedenofsin.7340:

are you going to recognize the “Apex Predator” problem you have created?

Could you elaborate on what this “Apex Predator” problem is?

And unfortunately, it’ll probably take half a year until Anet starts to address that. Just look at us poor Elementalists.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Thedenofsin.7340:

are you going to recognize the “Apex Predator” problem you have created?

Could you elaborate on what this “Apex Predator” problem is?

Apex predator: Apex predators (also known as alpha, super, top or top-level predators) are predators with few to no predators of their own, residing at the top of their food chain

The “Back cap/roamer” role can be performed by several professions: thief, mesmer, elementalists, and warrior. Thief, however, performs this role far better than any of the others. It has superior damage, superior mobility, and superior survivability. On top of this, thieves dominate their direct competitors in a 1v1 situation (warriors to a lesser degree, but we all know warriors are currently pretty broken).

This results in thieves being the go-to class for that role in the meta, with no competition.

Basically, thieves are not only the best at their role, but they are also the best at countering other builds with the same role.

Is that the only role mesmers can play?

I have posted this elsewhere, but it seems to belong here.

I watched Helseth’s stream yesterday, and yes: Apparently, he is re-rolling to thief.
Below is some of the reasons he gave on his stream, as to why he is changing profession.
__________________________________________________________________

[Stream:] “I thought you said mesmer is viable?”

Mesmer isn’t viable, I am.
I have made that statement before if you look at my YouTube video.
Here is the deal: Mesmer is viable right now because the competition is kitten.

Mesmer is bad compared to backstab thief. Period.
There is nothing a Mesmer brings that makes it worth taking over a backstab Thief. Nothing. Like what exactly does a Mesmer bring that makes it worth it?

PORTAL! Exactly! That is the one thing that makes you want to bring Mesmer.
Portal! 90 second cool down utility to port the team around. That is the one reason you would bring Mesmer over Thief.

The damage of Mesmer vs Thief is pathetic. Like it’s no contest. Thief easily trumps shatter. The tools I have as Thief exceeds what I have as a Mesmer. Simple as that.

Portal is why you want to take Mesmer, but Mesmer has pathetic mobility compared to thief, way less evades, way less damage. Like the one thing Mesmer has is utility in the portal and more reliable boon stealing. But thief has so much utility as well.

You guys can bother with your Mesmer all that you want. I am not telling you to quit Mesmer, I am saying I am quitting Mesmer.

I am done playing Mesmer, I am done. I am a kitten (bad) D/P thief, but I won’t be for long. It has nothing to do with giving up on Mesmer. It is not giving up; it is just realizing that D/P has more potential. If I was as good on D/P thief as I am on Mesmer, then I´d be a much more useful player.

[Stream:] “Can you name some of the key reasons to why you don’t want to play Mesmer anymore?”

OK. Mobility: Thief wins, damage: Thief wins, survivability: Thief wins, utility: Thief slightly worse. So there you go. There you go. Thief is much better than Mesmer in every single regard and they have the same role. No point. Literally no point of playing Mesmer.
__________________________________________________________________

Link to the stream episode

Thedenofsin.7340:

Devs,

Now that two of the best Mesmer players, Helseth and Sensotix, have quit playing Mesmer in favor of thief, are you going to recognize the “Apex Predator” problem you have created?

For clarification I am not saying Helseth and Sensotix are the best, simply among the best.

edit:
Helseth quitting Mesmer: http://www.twitch.tv/helsethgw2/b/500201131
Sensotix quitting Mesmer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3e9eHHjfaQ

Thief= no experience

Thief= low-skill requirement

Thief= no effort

Thief= cheap design with cheap alternative mechanics and tools.

Profits= unlimited access to stealth, stability, highest single damage, conditioner removal, critics, boon stripping, teleporting, health, resetting fights, survivability, invisibility, invulnerability, invincibility….bonuses and rewards.

Seriously ask yourself,

why work for hard labor, when you can work for cheap labor and get better profit ?

And the top NA mesmer Supcutie played spirit ranger in his last tournament.

Looks like every top mesmer has rerolled or quit.

Good thing Aanet is nerfing mesmers this patch LOL.

Burnfall.9573:

why work for hard labor, when you can work for cheap labor and get better profit ?

Haha! I like it. Sounds just like a thief. /whistles

Btw not a single mesmer in the whole KOTM2 tournament on the weekend.

16 teams, 80 of the best players in the world and not a single mesmer..

Even the team that came 2nd had a staff ele.

dimyzuka.7051:

Btw not a single mesmer in the whole KOTM2 tournament on the weekend.

16 teams, 80 of the best players in the world and not a single mesmer..

Even the team that came 2nd had a staff ele.

Oh dear.

I was not aware Supcutie was now playing ranger. I’ll update the post to mention this as well.

dumyzuka – I believe there was 1 mesmer in the KOTM2 tournament, but don’t recall who it was at the moment.

Tremain.4623:

Is that the only role mesmers can play?

In high end organized team tournaments, then yes.

Sad day. Three of the best Mesmers are no more.

Still love my Mesmer to bits, but when I dust off my Thief (that I barely if ever play and am a total muppet at) you wonder why you bother with Mesmer. It’s all so much easier… better mobility, better dis-engage, massive burst, more stealth, and compared to a Mesmer remarkable condition removal.

I’ll stick with my Mesmer, for now, but especially WvW roaming as a thief is 10 times more fun. I don’t play high-end tPvP, so can’t comment on that, but solo queue a Thief is much more fun as well.

Burnfall.9573:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Devs,

Now that two of the best Mesmer players, Helseth and Sensotix, have quit playing Mesmer in favor of thief, are you going to recognize the “Apex Predator” problem you have created?

For clarification I am not saying Helseth and Sensotix are the best, simply among the best.

edit:
Helseth quitting Mesmer: http://www.twitch.tv/helsethgw2/b/500201131
Sensotix quitting Mesmer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3e9eHHjfaQ

Thief= no effort class

Thief= low-skill class.

Thief= cheap design with cheap alternative mechanics and tools.

Profits= unlimited access to stealth, stability, highest single damage, conditioner removal, critics, boon stripping, teleporting, health, resetting fights, survivability, invisibility, invulnerability, invincibility….everything you can imagine.

Seriously ask yourself,

why work for hard labor, when you can work for cheap labor and get better profit ?

I’ve actually picked up on a theif…it’s a lot harder then it looks. Then again i’m a frontline/melee main. The thing with thief is that it’s really strong vs idle ranged characters(and ranged in general). With my Guardian i don’t have much problems with them uless they’re really good or they use P/D and kite me to death.

if you build for damage you’re fragile, even with stealth, and it only takes cleave and AoE, to get you down (Damage specs). Conditions also can destroy thieves, since their condi removal is either a combination of things like :Hide in Shadows(heal ,30 sec CD, removes poison, burning, and bleed.), Lyssa Runes, Shadow’s Embrace(Shadow Arts Trait, removes 1 upon stealth activation, and 1 every 3 seconds in stealth), and Shadowstep(3 on returning to original position). Sword also has condition removal on Shadow Return but you’ll often end up in a bad position if used poorly.

Boon steals are only if they spec for it via Trickery line, unlimited stealth isn’t as bad as it used to be. D/P based builds can do the combo up to two or so times without being revealed before going dry on Initiative(unless they combo it with a utility skill like Shadow Refuge.)

Point is though Thief is harder to use/manage against better opponents. You want to complain about stealth go look at Stealth based mesmer builds that stay safe while they let Phantasms wreck you. (Torch stealth. Veil, mass invis.) or the condition based clone death inflicts conditions(You’ll never die to one unless you keep killing clones/getting shattered.).

Lucentfir.7430:

You want to complain about stealth go look at Stealth based mesmer builds that stay safe while they let Phantasms Wreck you. (Torch stealth. Veil, mass invis.)

That build is not viable for high end tpvp and is therefore not relevant in this particular discussion I would think.

This is sad to hear. I have mostly played mesmer in sPvP and hearing that two of the most famous players of this class will reroll is disappointing.
The only thing I can say is that they play for win. Or, more precisely, they play for winning with their team.
I have loads of fun when I play mesmer in PvP, way more than any other class I can play (see below for all the classes I play), so I will keep doing it even if a D/P thief would be a better overall choice.

Thedenofsin.7340:

……
Now that two of the best Mesmer players, …. have quit playing Mesmer

the whole world exitstence Ends NOW
…
nope, sun is already coming up

PS: vain

Not normally a fan of QQ class threads, but in this case a big +1

As someone who has sunk thousands of hours into his main profession (warrior), but has had to accept the mechanics of warrior will never accommodate top level play. At the moment you basically need to land 2-3 key attacks as often as possible, and dodge as much as you can (but nothing specific due to high stab/condi removal).

I’ve gone guard, working on a build/play style which hasn’t seen much play since kaypud did it in Q4 2012.

But may have to end up going thief all the same.

Basically you have a choice; run the strongest low skill level build in the meta, or run a higher skill level build that can match up to them.

But these skill cap builds arn’t at all viable on some classes, especially warrior, and I’m not going to hang around for the inevitable nerfs to the easiest war builds.

Arenanet isn’t addressing the skill cap builds on classes right now, and forcing us to go elsewhere. In this case it’s shatter Mesmer, which needs to be made better for really good players.

Just to emphasise though I’m not saying warriors arnt strong in the meta they are.

What I’m saying is the creative development of warriors is heading in a direction which isn’t sustainable for high end players; they’re too easy when brought in line with other classes, and the tougher builds will be nerfed by the same hammer.

If arenanet would like any feedback on warrior and some of the more demanding builds that need to be made viable, please say!! I know so many ways to improve warriors without making them more OP/too tricky for new players.

OMG this is breaking news.

As an elementalist player it is always nice to see new classes in the crap category.

It’s just sad.
No elementalists
no mesmers
a smattering of engineers
thieves everywhere
double warriors teams (Cheese Mode) winning competitions left and right

I honestly don’t have the faintest idea what ANet is trying to balance around.

I’ve already seen Sensotix’s videos as thief, and I’d say he’s adapted pretty well.

Why would anyone make the effort to learn a new profession they dont enjoy when the game’s dead?

There’s just no point

Thedenofsin.7340:

Helseth quitting Mesmer: http://www.twitch.tv/helsethgw2/b/500201131

I have never laughed so hard than at 2:40 .. highly recommend.

The problem isn’t even Mesmers being weak – they aren’t. It’s 100% that thieves are just too strong. Eles need to have some of their mobility back, mesmers are in a decent spot, and thieves NEED to be toned down.

The problem is that the thief class mechanic is damage avoidance – and they are the BEST at that on top of their #1 mobility. When your defense is avoidance, why bother taking defensive traits/stats/utilities? If you get hit a few times you will still die, but giving up offense just increases the clock the other guy has to kill you.

Thieves have to be given more mandate to take some defense, and need to be rebalanced such that they don’t auto-win vs. any other dps-build. I think tweaking some of their strongest utilities could do the trick (signet of agility, shadow-step, shadow refuge) to take some survivability away from otherwise full-glass specs.

Just a thought, but wouldnt it be better if Portal was just completely removed? Or just PvE only?

Its really strong in wvw, really strong in spvp. Sounds to me like the potential of equiping that utility skill is holding the profession back.

Terrahero.9358:

Just a thought, but wouldnt it be better if Portal was just completely removed? Or just PvE only?

Its really strong in wvw, really strong in spvp. Sounds to me like the potential of equiping that utility skill is holding the profession back.

I made a similar assertion in the other Mesmer thread and was laughed at :/ It would appear if the Mesmer could actually afford to slot some condi removal they wouldn’t be so bad but they simply don’t have room for it.

Terrahero.9358:

Just a thought, but wouldnt it be better if Portal was just completely removed? Or just PvE only?

Its really strong in wvw, really strong in spvp. Sounds to me like the potential of equiping that utility skill is holding the profession back.

I think you are implying the developers would rebalance Mesmers if they removed Portal.

Based upon track records, that’s an assumption I would not make.

Burnfall.9573:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Devs,

Now that two of the best Mesmer players, Helseth and Sensotix, have quit playing Mesmer in favor of thief, are you going to recognize the “Apex Predator” problem you have created?

For clarification I am not saying Helseth and Sensotix are the best, simply among the best.

edit:
Helseth quitting Mesmer: http://www.twitch.tv/helsethgw2/b/500201131
Sensotix quitting Mesmer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3e9eHHjfaQ

Thief= no experience

Thief= low-skill requirement

Thief= no effort

Thief= cheap design with cheap alternative mechanics and tools.

Profits= unlimited access to stealth, stability, highest single damage, conditioner removal, critics, boon stripping, teleporting, health, resetting fights, survivability, invisibility, invulnerability, invincibility….bonuses and rewards.

Seriously ask yourself,

why work for hard labor, when you can work for cheap labor and get better profit ?

I really hope you’re just trolling, because if you’re not than I’d recommend you pick up a Thief and try it for yourself. And if you have already and are so ready to disapprove me, than I would love to see some footage of how you play. It takes a tremendous amount of skill, effort, and practice to play a Thief correctly. A good Thief is Average, a Great Thief is Dangerous. And shall I also add. The build doesn’t make the player, the player makes the build. If a scrub D/P Thief were to 1v1 another Thief with greater skill and preferably with a different set, then that other Thief will have no problem with that D/P. Our cheap design takes alot of getting used to, and alot of conservation. If you don’t conserve and use your initiative wisely, than you’re done, and it’s game over. Thief’s stability access is very limited. via: Daggerstorm, or Bountiful Theft trait when you steal from another player. Stealth does not make you invulnerable nor invincible. Playing a Thief is always high risk, because of our lack of boons that we cannot produce by ourselves, via “protection”. Not to mention our base health pool, and armor rating are among 1 of the lowest raw, w/o any boons backing us up.

I think the game mode just highlights this. When the new gametypes come I think there will be more roles.

There will always be a best at something you might have a class that can do OK but you want to take the best.

How can you make the roamer role better for other classes? Nerf the class that is the best at it? Then you have to nerf it so that it is = to the other classes that can fill that role. Otherwise people will still take the thief right? So how do you make thief = mesmer, elementalist, warrior. Why would you? What about the other classes then? We should nerf everyone’s mobility to Guardian so that they can all fill the role. We should give guardian bleeds, weakness, poison, cripple, immobilze and fear so that Guardian can play condi pressure. We should nerf engineers mobility so that they = Necromancer. The list goes on and on until it’s boring and every class does everything the same but they look different.

I don’t know why this is a thing because they are playing another class. Good players can play different classes there doesn’t need to be a “Hero” player tied to a class.

so a class is good at one role and some players decided to switch to them, now what?

mesmers aren’t bad, thieves are not exactly best class in game atm either, what is your point?

@Aiki: don’t listen to Burnfall, he been spamming thief forums with such nonsense forever

Cynz.9437:

so a class is good at one role and some players decided to switch to them, now what?

mesmers aren’t bad, thieves are not exactly best class in game atm either, what is your point?

You’re right, mesmer aren’t bad, it’s just that thieves are better. That’s the point.

This thread is kind of funny in the context of things, though.

We’re discussing role identities based upon an existing meta in which the role of a mobile backdoor capper is being discussed. I’d like to ask those making accusations about thief being “overpowered” to take a look at every class’s description again, examine greater design philosophy, and then compare that to what role is trying to be fulfilled. Yup, looks like this “role” in sPvP is spot-on to what the thief was specifically designed to fill across all aspects of the game. Simply, a sneaky thief SHOULD be more sneaky than a sneaky mesmer. It isn’t the class being overpowered but the class doing its overall designed role better than a class which shares some elements.

Now, if a thief did a better job at facetanking and plowing throw enemies than warriors and guards, I’d concede this argument on the spot. Reality is that they simply do not.

Certain thief builds work very well in sPvP. Others do not. S/D is prevalent and pretty strong in the meta right now. Many of the other common builds found on thieves are simply lackluster in sPvP or outright bad. The irony is that these roles when compared to WvW and other content totally reverse.

Mesmers are not “viable” in sPvP due to a lack of mobility and condi cleanse. I think it has more to do with the former, honestly. That said, putting mesmers into such a position such that they could gain mobility at no expense would place them in a very precarious position in that they would only have one counter: conditions. Consequently, this would also escalate the class from not being a top-tier class in WvW on the level of warriors, but would simply makes the class THE BEST at every role in WvW.

Shatter builds do strictly more damage in every other area of the game than thieves except sPvP. Another very relevant problem which would have immense side effects outside of sPvP and would put thieves lower than they already are on the list in terms of viability elsewhere (hint: they’re third from the bottom at the moment).

So what appears to be the problem is both a combination of the metagame not letting mesmers by design fulfill the roles of certain players, not so much as the thief class being overpowered. Ultimately, what appears to be necessary is a meta shift or some slight compensation for mesmers to allow for a meta shift to happen and find both necessary and viable roles in sPvP. Like I said, thieves are abundant because they play the roamer role well; the problem lies in that this is the ONLY role they can properly maintain without having an immense skill advantage, in which case the argument is nullified to begin with.

And of course, the new class changes and crit damage adjustmnts are simply nerfing thieves everywhere they aren’t overpowered while letting such existing prevalence continue to exist, while not addressing the actual problems at hand.

So there’s nothing to actually cry about here regarding thieves, but asking for some form of mesmer compensation in sPvP. I suspect first asking for traveler runes in the sPvP vendors would be a good place to begin.

For crying out loud, you people… Helseth is a terrible Mesmer/person anyways, so it’s not like I care that much. I’ve played a thief since the beginning, and I can easily defeat them with my Mesmer. They’re not UP but Mesmers are easily on the same level as they are.

BlackBeard.2873:

The problem isn’t even Mesmers being weak – they aren’t. It’s 100% that thieves are just too strong. Eles need to have some of their mobility back, mesmers are in a decent spot, and thieves NEED to be toned down.

The problem is that the thief class mechanic is damage avoidance – and they are the BEST at that on top of their #1 mobility. When your defense is avoidance, why bother taking defensive traits/stats/utilities? If you get hit a few times you will still die, but giving up offense just increases the clock the other guy has to kill you.

Thieves have to be given more mandate to take some defense, and need to be rebalanced such that they don’t auto-win vs. any other dps-build. I think tweaking some of their strongest utilities could do the trick (signet of agility, shadow-step, shadow refuge) to take some survivability away from otherwise full-glass specs.

^This. Insightful post. You’ve hit the nail on the head.

Another idea would be to introduce thief counter-play to classes which compete for the same role. For example, Lightning Touch and iMage both apply 2 seconds of revealed.

Based upon the changes made to the game, I’d venture to guess the developers are too frightened to nerf thieves (and warriors), most likely because they are one of the most played classes.

Sorry, I don’t buy it.

Thieves have received nothing but nerfs for a long time now, and S/D literally just got destroyed, leaving one spec… D/P glass cannon backstab, which you would have to be high to claim has higher survivability than a Mesmer.

Aside from that, I see way more Mesmers in spvp than thieves, and I personally find thieves extremely easy to kill, no matter what profession I am playing, where as even bad mesmers can be very tough to bring down between all the teleports, stealths, and evades.

I love people who claim thieves take no skill, and have great survivability. Its a joke. To survive as a thief, you have to time your evades and dodges very well, and also manage your initiative because if you run out at the wrong time, you are dead.

Compare this to a mesmer who can fart out clones every dodge roll(with perma vigor btw) and decoy, and also have a high uptime on stealth if they want, and plenty of teleports between sword and staff. Put it all together and its just so easy to play one compared to a thief, at least for me.

The last time I saw actual data numbers, thieves were way down. This was after the larcenous strike nerf, but before the recent inf strike nerf. I am curious to know if anything has changed.

Arganthium.5638:

For crying out loud, you people… Helseth is a terrible Mesmer/person anyways, so it’s not like I care that much. I’ve played a thief since the beginning, and I can easily defeat them with my Mesmer. They’re not UP but Mesmers are easily on the same level as they are.

Yeah, I can also easily beat them on my mesmer, so that must mean mesmer is 100% on the same level as thief!

Helseth is one of the few people who actually know how mesmer should be playing in tpvp. Playing 1v1 builds in tpvp while fighting completely kittened thieves doesn’t mean you’re on the same level.

@ stx
Lol D/p only/best spec left? I don’t even know what to say man.. I really don’t….

Thedenofsin.7340:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Thedenofsin.7340:

are you going to recognize the “Apex Predator” problem you have created?

Could you elaborate on what this “Apex Predator” problem is?

Apex predator: Apex predators (also known as alpha, super, top or top-level predators) are predators with few to no predators of their own, residing at the top of their food chain

The “Back cap/roamer” role can be performed by several professions: thief, mesmer, elementalists, and warrior. Thief, however, performs this role far better than any of the others. It has superior damage, superior mobility, and superior survivability. On top of this, thieves dominate their direct competitors in a 1v1 situation (warriors to a lesser degree, but we all know warriors are currently pretty broken).

This results in thieves being the go-to class for that role in the meta, with no competition.

1. Guardian (specifically a Med guardian) and engineer can easily fulfill that role as well.

2. Thief’s weapon coefficients are, generally, abhorrently low. On S/D, the only attack that deals any significant amount of damage is LS, which misses at least 50% of the time anyways due to practical reasons.

3. Not many thief builds have good mobility; that tends to be the realm of S/D, if anything.

4. Thieves are the most survivable out of all of those classes? They have the lowest base health and medium armor, not to mention that you have to go full zerker (in general) to beat other classes. 0/10.

5. Even in 1v1s, it’s rare that thieves “dominate” other classes. Mesmers can easily go toe-to-toe with them in a sharp but unclear fight (probably with even chances). Non-bunker guards have a few tricks they can use to maintain a strong defense against thieves (I’d give my guard 60-40 or even 70-30 chances in light of this fact). And on engineer, controlling the enemy thief can give even a mediocre engineer good chances against a good thief.

6. If nothing else, there are many very basic holes in the defense and offense of thieves. That makes them extremely easy to counter, once you have the basic knowledge.

BlackDevil.9268:

Arganthium.5638:

For crying out loud, you people… Helseth is a terrible Mesmer/person anyways, so it’s not like I care that much. I’ve played a thief since the beginning, and I can easily defeat them with my Mesmer. They’re not UP but Mesmers are easily on the same level as they are.

Yeah, I can also easily beat them on my mesmer, so that must mean mesmer is 100% on the same level as thief!

Helseth is one of the few people who actually know how mesmer should be playing in tpvp. Playing 1v1 builds in tpvp while fighting completely kittened thieves doesn’t mean you’re on the same level.

Lol. I was even playing nice with you guys and using anecdotal evidence as opposed to theoretical evidence, with which I can build a much, much stronger argument against the idea behind this post. However, if you’d like to give me evidence that contradicts what I’ve said that is not based on direct experience, be my guest.

Arganthium.5638:

For crying out loud, you people… Helseth is a terrible Mesmer/person anyways, so it’s not like I care that much. I’ve played a thief since the beginning, and I can easily defeat them with my Mesmer. They’re not UP but Mesmers are easily on the same level as they are.

This is simply untrue. Helseth is quite good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYz9RbHHE4w

This post is full of misinformation and misleading information.

Arganthium.56381.

Guardian (specifically a Med guardian) and engineer can easily fulfill that role as well.

A necro with no access to swiftness could fill that role as well. However, it doesn’t mean they are any good at it. A guardian would be among the worst choices for roamer. Decap engies are good at a far decap, but have almost no team utility.

Arganthium.56381.

2. Thief’s weapon coefficients are, generally, abhorrently low. On S/D, the only attack that deals any significant amount of damage is LS, which misses at least 50% of the time anyways due to practical reasons.

Weapon coefficients have nothing to do with their role.
Thieves have the best burst damage in the game.

Arganthium.56381.

3. Not many thief builds have good mobility; that tends to be the realm of S/D, if anything.

S/D, D/D have the best mobility in the game, bar none. No one cares about other builds that aren’t used in the meta.
Thieves are the only profession that can literally cross the entire map of Khylo in 6 seconds.

Arganthium.56381.

4. Thieves are the most survivable out of all of those classes? They have the lowest base health and medium armor, not to mention that you have to go full zerker (in general) to beat other classes. 0/10.

You intentionally avoided mentioning everything that gives thieves high survivability. Evade? High vigor uptime? Extensive access to Stealth? 0/10

Arganthium.56381.

5. Even in 1v1s, it’s rare that thieves “dominate” other classes. Mesmers can easily go toe-to-toe with them in a sharp but unclear fight (probably with even chances).

If the Mesmer is running a team build (shatter GS/Staff), he is easy pickings to a thief 90% of the time. The best thing a Mesmer can do is run. Same is true for elementalists.

Arganthium.56381.

Non-bunker guards have a few tricks they can use to maintain a strong defense against thieves (I’d give my guard 60-40 or even 70-30 chances in light of this fact). And on engineer, controlling the enemy thief can give even a mediocre engineer good chances against a good thief.

And by the time the Guardian/engineer have reached the thief, he has already fully capped the far node, and in 4 seconds he will be back at mid supporting the team fight while the guardian/engineer is trying to recap.
Conversely, if a thief sees a guardian trying to far cap, he will be on top of that guardian long before he gets to the node. Hell, the guardian could be on the node decapping and the thief can get there before it’s fully capped.

Arganthium.56381.

6. If nothing else, there are many very basic holes in the defense and offense of thieves. That makes them extremely easy to counter, once you have the basic knowledge.

Yet nearly every team runs with a thief. And with the aforementioned players switching, every team will run with a thief.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Arganthium.5638:

For crying out loud, you people… Helseth is a terrible Mesmer/person anyways, so it’s not like I care that much. I’ve played a thief since the beginning, and I can easily defeat them with my Mesmer. They’re not UP but Mesmers are easily on the same level as they are.

This is simply untrue. Helseth is quite good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYz9RbHHE4w

So let me see if I understand what you’re trying to do here: you picked out a SoloQ game that was already selected very specifically by Helseth and are using that as evidence that Helseth is a good player. Okay, sure, maybe we can let that go past. But how good were the other players? They all sucked terribly. They hardly made any offensive maneuvers against Helseth’s team, and their technique was absolutely godawful (not to mention- no idea how that thief was so easy to kill. If Helseth hadn’t played so passively/defensively… But I’ll get to that in a second.) They had three (!) guardians on their team. Two is certainly playable, but at three guardians you’re starving yourselves for diversity. The other team played insanely defensively (and they practiced extremely bad defense as well); the fact that Helseth stayed at the far point for virtually the entire game and outnumbered or had even numbers with the other team in just about every fight should attest to this.

But that wasn’t even the end of it. As I hinted to earlier, Helseth was horrendously defensive in his play. I can’t even begin to say the amount of time that he spent hiding away from or in defensive positions relative to his opponents. Just look at some of his plays; at the beginning of the game, he sat around away from far point for no apparent reason. It would have been understandable if he was legitimately trying to hide, i.e. with a well-timed stealth, behind an object, etc (though I doubt those techniques would’ve worked, at least against good play), but he ran head-on into that 2v1 anyways, so I’m not sure what kind of purpose he was trying to fulfill. Then, he spent almost no time on point. Unless I’m playing a stealth thief, I stay on point for as long as physically possible. Helseth was just dashing onto points and then dashing off. He’s not presenting a threat, he’s just randomly walking around. I doubt I need to emphasize his other plays; they’re obviously extremely defensive, even passive (when he’s just standing around doing nothing). That was a horrid video.

Arganthium.5638:

BlackDevil.9268:

Arganthium.5638:

For crying out loud, you people… Helseth is a terrible Mesmer/person anyways, so it’s not like I care that much. I’ve played a thief since the beginning, and I can easily defeat them with my Mesmer. They’re not UP but Mesmers are easily on the same level as they are.

Yeah, I can also easily beat them on my mesmer, so that must mean mesmer is 100% on the same level as thief!

Helseth is one of the few people who actually know how mesmer should be playing in tpvp. Playing 1v1 builds in tpvp while fighting completely kittened thieves doesn’t mean you’re on the same level.

Lol. I was even playing nice with you guys and using anecdotal evidence as opposed to theoretical evidence, with which I can build a much, much stronger argument against the idea behind this post. However, if you’d like to give me evidence that contradicts what I’ve said that is not based on direct experience, be my guest.

Hell, I don’t know, maybe look up his past… 100 streams? Maybe you come up with your ’’evidence’’ of you totally owning all thieves you meet in tpvp and I gonna forum warrior on that footage. I’m pretty much sure It’ll be a fun list of stuff I can say about either your useful…, or well let’s say uselessness, the enemies you’re facing or the crap you’re playing.

Arganthium.5638:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Arganthium.5638:

For crying out loud, you people… Helseth is a terrible Mesmer/person anyways, so it’s not like I care that much. I’ve played a thief since the beginning, and I can easily defeat them with my Mesmer. They’re not UP but Mesmers are easily on the same level as they are.

This is simply untrue. Helseth is quite good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYz9RbHHE4w

So let me see if I understand what you’re trying to do here: you picked out a SoloQ game that was already selected very specifically by Helseth and are using that as evidence that Helseth is a good player. Okay, sure, maybe we can let that go past. But how good were the other players? They all sucked terribly. They hardly made any offensive maneuvers against Helseth’s team, and their technique was absolutely godawful (not to mention- no idea how that thief was so easy to kill. If Helseth hadn’t played so passively/defensively… But I’ll get to that in a second.) They had three (!) guardians on their team. Two is certainly playable, but at three guardians you’re starving yourselves for diversity. The other team played insanely defensively (and they practiced extremely bad defense as well); the fact that Helseth stayed at the far point for virtually the entire game and outnumbered or had even numbers with the other team in just about every fight should attest to this.

But that wasn’t even the end of it. As I hinted to earlier, Helseth was horrendously defensive in his play. I can’t even begin to say the amount of time that he spent hiding away from or in defensive positions relative to his opponents. Just look at some of his plays; at the beginning of the game, he sat around away from far point for no apparent reason. It would have been understandable if he was legitimately trying to hide, i.e. with a well-timed stealth, behind an object, etc (though I doubt those techniques would’ve worked, at least against good play), but he ran head-on into that 2v1 anyways, so I’m not sure what kind of purpose he was trying to fulfill. Then, he spent almost no time on point. Unless I’m playing a stealth thief, I stay on point for as long as physically possible. Helseth was just dashing onto points and then dashing off. He’s not presenting a threat, he’s just randomly walking around. I doubt I need to emphasize his other plays; they’re obviously extremely defensive, even passive (when he’s just standing around doing nothing). That was a horrid video.

Your reply has illustrated to me just how much you know about playing a Mesmer competitively.

Thank you.